Two of the four Taliban were lying in the forward room, near the fireplace, while the other two were in back, in the colder part of the house with the hostages.
This complicated things. They couldn't ram through the door, shoot the first two guys, and hope the guys in the back wouldn't kill the friendlies.
They had to get into the house quietly, dematerializing and walking through the walls, then returning to normal inside.
Damn, it'd be nice to have that power.
Instead it was up to Ramirez to kneel down, fish out his tool pouch, and begin picking the lock.
And no, the door was not unlocked. He always checked that first.
"Ghost Lead, this is Diaz. I got one coming out of the back house. He's stopping, lighting up a cigarette."
In five seconds that guy could round the corner and spot them. Ramirez almost had the lock.
"Diaz, can you take him out?" asked the captain.
"It's not clean. He's in a bad spot. And he seems a little weird now, might be getting ready to look for his buddy. I don't have a shot. No shot."
"Brown, go get him," ordered the captain.
Although Sergeant Marcus Brown was born and raised in the windy city of Chicago, he and cold weather still had a hate-hate relationship. The blood had never thickened, he liked to say. He was a rebel to the core, battling against his parents, nature, and the entire universe. He wouldn't have it any other way.
Swearing over the subzero breeze, he skulked around the back of the house, drawing his Russian-made Tula Tokarev (TT-33) with silencer.
Brown wasn't fond of the old pistol, which was once a status symbol among the Taliban in Waziristan. He preferred the more accurate, more reliable, more-of-everything Px4 Storm SD, thank you. Still, familiarizing yourself with as many weapons as possible, especially those of your enemies, was part of every Ghost's training.
Brown unsheathed his Blackhawk Masters of Defense Nightwing and took it into his left hand in a reverse grip. He wasn't expecting to use it, but you never knew. The fixed blade had a fiberglass nylon handle with wing-walk inserts, a black tungsten diamondlike carbon (DLC) finish, and a serrated spine, giving him a secondary edge for back cuts and draw cuts. The blade was 5.9 inches of pure death, and he considered it the American Express card of knives--because he never deployed without it.
Some of the Ghosts teased Brown about his affection for the knife. Everyone carried one type of folder or fixed blade for utility purposes; you wouldn't find a soldier who didn't. Odd thing was, Brown had earned his reputation not as a knife-wielding martial artist but as a gunner carrying the heavy Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) and its variants through the deserts of Africa during his early Special Forces assignments.
Prior to that he'd served with the Second Infantry Brigade in Iraq, and he rarely shared the story of that night in Fallujah, when his squad had been ambushed while on dismounted patrol--and his knife had kept him alive.
They'd been moving through an alley toward several residences where a suspected insurgent and his brother were living. They never made it. Withering gunfire came from everywhere, it seemed.
Brown pulled three wounded squad mates to safety and continued to hold off at least a half dozen insurgents for fifteen minutes until he'd run out of ammo and couldn't reach his fallen brothers' packs. Then, before his backup arrived, the bad guys moved in.
He could have panicked. He could have done something rash like trying to evacuate the others, one by one, but he knew that would only get him shot.
So he did something desperate, something he thought only worked in the movies. He'd had no choice.
Brown instructed the others to play dead, and he did likewise.
The first guy drew up on him in the dark, leaned over, and that's when Brown sat up and punched him in the heart with his Nightwing.
As the guy fell back, Brown seized the man's weapon, finished him, and reengaged the others. The ensuing firefight lasted another five minutes before his backup arrived, and Brown was twice wounded.
From that day forward, the Nightwing never left his side. Even in a world of high-tech warfare, cold, hard steel could never be replaced, and neither could a warrior's will to survive.
He always grimaced when he thought about being nominated for the Silver Star for his actions that night, not because the nomination made him feel awkward but because his parents had offered only a halfhearted acknowledgment.
Brown imagined them sitting in their million-dollar home in Lake Forest, cursing over the fact that he had thrown it all away, dropped out of the University of Illinois, abandoned his position as a defensive lineman on the Fighting Illini to what? "Join the army? Have you lost your mind?" his mother had said.
His father had screamed at the top of his lungs, "I was the first man in my family to earn a college degree! A graduate degree! We're creating a new legacy for our family, for our people! In a few years I'll be running for mayor of this city! You have a great future ahead of you in public service--and now you want to go backward!"
But Brown had just wanted so much more out of life than a business or a law degree could offer. He never saw himself sitting in meetings with city council members, discussing community issues. His methods of effecting change were much more aggressive.
Consequently, the guard who'd come out of the mud-brick house for a smoke never stood a chance.
Brown put a silenced round in the man's forehead and caught him before he hit the snow and made too much noise. After lowering him to the ground, Brown sheathed his knife and dug under the guy's arms to drag him round the side of the building, out of sight. That done, Brown crouched low near the corner to catch his breath, relief flooding through him like a warm cup of coffee. He issued his report to Captain Mitchell.
As confident as Brown was, there were more than a million ways you could screw up any mission, and he liked to joke that he had already discovered at least seventy-two of them.
Mitchell lifted his chin at Ramirez, who nodded and tucked away his tool kit. The door was open.
"Diaz, what do you see?"
"All clear now, Captain."
After taking one more look through the eyes of the drone and reconfirming the positions of every combatant, Mitchell waited as Brown returned and got into position.
Ramirez would take left, Brown right, and Mitchell would come in low, on his belly--an unconventional choice to be sure, but that's the way he rolled. Ramirez and Brown would draw first attention should the guys in the front room awaken, and that would give Mitchell his chance to fire from his elbows.
It would all happen in gasps and whispers, fingers of mist pulling triggers and hearts stopping. They would float in and float out with their package, leaving cold, still death in their wake.
That dog in the valley howled again.
Mitchell braced himself. "Ghost Team, attack!"
ELEVEN
NORTHWEST WAZIRISTAN
AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN BORDER
JANUARY 2009
Picking the lock was one thing. Getting the door to swing open quietly was another, and Mitchell flinched as Brown placed his gloved hand on the icy wood and drove the door forward.
Ramirez wore a smirk of confidence, thoroughly convinced that their entry would be smooth and soundless. After picking the lock, he had sprayed the corners of the door with his own custom blend of lubricants that he insisted would seep down, get into the metal, and eliminate what he called those "Haunted-house-Michael-Jackson-'Thriller'-type door squeaks."
The hinges, of course, were located on the inside of the door, so Mitchell remained dubious about the amount of lubricant that had actually reached them from the outside. But lo and behold, the door glided open. However, the cold wind rushed in, a wind they had no control over. The two men lying in small wooden beds on either side of the fireplace stirred, and one lifted his head.
Before Mitchell could fire, Ramirez and Brown put their pistols to work, sending both men back to eternal rest, blood pooling on th
eir pillows.
Mitchell bolted to his feet and moved inside, closing the door behind them.
A voice came from the other room: a guy complaining in Pashto about the door being open.
Mitchell shifted around the partitioning wall toward the voice and took in the scene at once: another two beds, two guys, hostages in the corner. One guy rolling over.
Mitchell directed his own silenced pistol at the first guy and cut loose a round, hammering him in the chest.
Continuing in one fluid motion, he turned to his right and targeted the second guy, who was reaching for the rifle propped beside him. The guy's head twisted as Mitchell shot him.
But now the first guy was moving again. Mitchell rushed up to the bed and finished him with two more rounds. One would have been enough, but his frustration got the best of him. "Clear," he grunted into the radio.
"Who are you?" someone called.
Mitchell stepped around a beat-up dresser, piles of wool blankets, and a half dozen or so crates of ammo to reach the man who had called out to him.
Agent Thomas Saenz, code name Mongoose, was a longtime field operative for the CIA who had spent the past eight years in Afghanistan. With a ruddy complexion, long beard, and matted, shoulder-length hair, Mitchell could barely distinguish him from his Taliban captors. His hands were bound behind his back with a pair of heavy police cuffs.
Beside him sat Agent Erik Vick, code name Viking, a broad-shouldered, stocky man with a shock of chestnut brown hair and a wiry beard. He, too, could easily be mistaken for an insurgent and had spent the past three years working the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and the tri-border area to the west.
And the third man, well--Mitchell could barely breathe, and a dull ache came into his eyes. It was Rutang, all right, his old friend who had gotten back on the horse, deployed to Afghanistan, and been making a new name for himself for the past couple of years as a top-notch Special Forces medic. The last time Mitchell had seen him was at his promotion party.
Rutang's face was mostly purple, his left eye swollen, and they'd obviously drugged all of the men to keep them docile. Mitchell's penlight revealed dilated pupils.
"Diaz, here, sir. Got another guy coming outside the center house. Better hurry."
"Roger that. Ramirez, keep covering the door. Brown? Get in here, now." Mitchell glanced over his shoulder as the gunner entered. "They're cuffed. I need keys."
"I'm on it."
"Tang, can you hear me?"
"Who are you?" asked Saenz.
Mitchell regarded the man with a weak grin. "We're the guys getting you out of here." He faced Rutang once more. "Come on, bro, you with me?"
"Scott, is that you?"
"Yeah." Mitchell swallowed and steeled himself as Rutang began to cry. "You're all right, Tang. Stop." They had beaten him so thoroughly that Mitchell feared picking him up.
"Keys," said Brown, after wrenching them from the nearest insurgent's pocket. He crossed around the bed and began opening Saenz's cuffs. Then he worked on Vick's.
"Captain," called Diaz. "The guy outside is moving around the back. He'll spot the bodies. I have a shot."
"Take it!"
Rutang cleared his throat. "Scott, I let everybody down again."
"No. The cache was blown. You stayed alive."
Three days ago Rutang's ODA team had been tasked with entering Waziristan based upon intel provided by Saenz and Vick. A pair of arms dealers with Chinese connections had arrived with a massive shipment of Chinese-made small arms, and the team's mission had been to kill the dealers and destroy the cache before it was delivered to the Taliban insurgents. Those small arms would undoubtedly be smuggled across the border into Afghanistan and could even reach Iran and Iraq. Those arms would no doubt be used against American and coalition forces in the region.
Part of a split team operation, Rutang and the rest of his six-man group, along with the two CIA agents, had served as the outer cordon, providing security and overwatch while the other six moved into the small village to take out the dealers and blow the cache.
What happened after that only Rutang and the agents could tell. Signals Intelligence had picked up a beacon in a snow-covered saddle about a quarter kilometer east of the houses, and further investigation of the site via satellite and Green Force tracking revealed that at least five members of the team were there, although all five GFTCs indicated no pulse.
The weapons cache had been destroyed, and higher assumed that Rutang, Saenz, and Vick had tried to hide the bodies then escape across the border into Afghanistan. Somewhere along the way they were captured.
"They got us because of me, Scott," Rutang said through a groan. "Because of me."
"No time to worry about that."
"Listen. First team got taken out in the explosion. But the others . . . We couldn't just leave 'em there."
"Tang, forget it."
"We planted a beacon on the site so higher could bring 'em home."
"Higher knows about the marker. They'll send in a recovery team. Don't you worry, brother. Nobody gets left behind."
Brown finished removing Rutang's cuffs, just as Diaz's voice broke once more over the radio. "Captain, I got him. But the bodies are piling up out here--you'd better move!"
"Roger that. We're getting them out right now. Ramirez, they're drugged. I need help."
Ramirez rushed back into the room, helped Saenz to his feet, draped the guy's arm over his shoulder. Brown assisted Vick, while Mitchell got Rutang to his feet--and it was now even more clear that he'd been the worst beaten of the group.
"Get some jackets, hats, gloves, whatever you can find. Bundle them up and get 'em ready to move," Mitchell ordered.
Ramirez and Brown got to work, and within minutes they had all three dressed and ready to face the weather.
"Buddy, I have to lift you," Mitchell told Rutang.
"I know."
Mitchell hoisted Rutang over his shoulders. "Just like old times, eh?"
"Yeah."
"At least you're lighter than the last time I carried you."
"I've been on the Taliban diet. Lose ten pounds in three days, guaranteed."
"Great. Now shut up and let me rescue your ass. Diaz, are we clear to move?"
"Affirm--wait, negative, negative! Another guy from the middle house, heading right for your door! He looks unarmed, but he's too fast for me."
"Captain, he's mine," said Brown, who carefully brought Vick to the bed, then rushed to the front door, drawing his Nightwing.
Mitchell put a finger to his lips, warning Brown.
The gunner nodded, eyes growing wide with an intensity that nearly lit the room.
The door swung open, and in stepped the guy, much shorter than the others, wearing a tan and black shemagh over his head and face. His voice came muffled: "Who stole my cigarettes? I want to know right now!"
Brown rolled away from the door. And the rest happened so quickly, so efficiently, that Mitchell could only mouth a curse in utter awe.
Like a bolt of lightning, Brown got behind the insurgent and slid his arm beneath the guy's chin, locking his jaw shut while simultaneously driving his blade into the man's heart.
With the blade still jutting from the man's chest, Brown released his hand, loosened his grip on the guy's neck, and began stuffing the guy's shemagh into his mouth.
The insurgent was still alive, beginning to bleed to death, and it could take a minute more before he lost consciousness. Knife wounds did not produce instant death the way they were portrayed in films and on TV, and Brown knew exactly what he was doing to keep the man quiet until blood loss took its toll.
"All right, let's go," Mitchell ordered.
Brown freed his knife, then hustled back to Vick, who slung his arm over Brown's shoulder, and they fell in behind Mitchell.
Ramirez and Saenz led the way out into the bitter cold and a more powerful wind that stung their cheeks.
They started down the hill, rallying back toward Diaz's position, b
ut Mitchell found a little section of hill where a pair of snow-covered boulders provided exceptional cover. "Set 'em down here."
"Scott, what now?" asked Rutang, slurring his words.
"Just making sure we're not followed. Brown's staying with you. We'll be right back. Diaz, you reloaded and set?"
"Yes, sir."
Mitchell stole a moment to pull up intel from the UAV3 Cypher drone. He brought the drone back over the houses to confirm that of the twelve insurgents, only three remained. Two guys were in the center house, one in the first house.
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